Chapter 1: Not Working

Jen Blake eased back in the car seat beside David. She had enjoyed their time with the Gordons, but she always felt she had to be ‘on’ when she was among her parishioners. With her husband, she could relax. But not just yet; what had he thought of her sermon? “So what did you think?”

“Nice folks,” David said. She couldn’t tell whether he’d missed her meaning or was trying to be funny.

“What did you think about the sermon?”

“Let me look something up before I go into this,” David said -- which was bad news. “Do you have a Strong’s?”

A huge concordance? She didn’t need one; the paperback was more than she used. He was the New Testament scholar, after all. She wasn’t. “Cruden’s. I’ll get it for you when we get back.”

She’d changed into comfortable clothes when he caught up with her. He handed her a Bible opened to the Old Testament. “Read verses 24 and 25.” It was Deut 23: 24 - 25:

“If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in a container. If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.”

“Oh my God!” she said.

“The reason that the Pharisees didn’t raise the issue of the Disciples eating grain they had picked from somebody else’s field,” David said, “is that this was perfectly legal.”

“I don’t mind your knowing more than I do. After all...” He had been her teacher in seminary. “But I got this idea from one of those sermon-starter books.”

“That’s a problem I’ve pointed out about myself. We New-Testament types don’t know the Old Testament well enough. Why do you think I read a chapter a night?”

“Because you need to know everything.” She knew that she needed skills and experience, but she’d figured that she had enough facts -- except particulars relating to the ministry -- when she’d graduated from college. And she figured Garrett- Evangelical had given her all the facts she needed on those particulars. She could remember some classmates who thought it had given them way too much. David, on the other hand, regarded his PhD studies as lessons in how to learn.

“I’ll never know everything. Some days I suspect I’ll never know much ... Look. This isn’t working.”

“What isn’t?”

“Commenting on your sermons on Sunday afternoon.”

“You just have another agenda for Sundays.” Not that she objected. Sunday evening and Monday were her times off. Making love to her husband was the best use she could think of for the time.

“Look. I’m not a professor of hermeneutics. I’m a content guy, a professor of New Testament.”

“You know more about preaching than I do.” She was in her second year; he had spent four years as a pastor.

“Not a hell of a lot.”

“And I won’t make that mistake again.”

“You also won’t preach on that text for another three years. I really doubt you’d repeat that point, anyway. Why don’t you let me hear your sermon before everybody else does? Thursday night?”

“You want me to prepare earlier.” He’d said that, and he was -- as he usually was -- right. He wasn’t always practical, though.

“Not just that ... But, you know, if you had one-tenth the respect for me as a preacher you claim to have, you’d at least listen to my advice on preparation.”

That was a point, but she was overworked anyway. She was a good counselor, a mediocre -- at best -- preacher. Why should she put her time in where it would contribute least to her congregation. “I don’t have as much time as you want me to take.”

“But I’m not asking for more time, really. I’m asking for better-distributed time. Try it out for me, will you? A prep time on Tuesday or Wednesday. Three weeks out of four that will take only the extra twenty minutes of running through it once. The fourth week, you’ll be glad you took the time.”

“I’ll try.” She really would. He was more experienced and a better preacher than she was. His idea of their studying the texts for the coming Sunday together had been a real help. Besides, he was usually fairly accepting of her rejection of something she had actually tried.

And some of David’s suggestions on later Thursdays were a help, though she didn’t know how much she was learning. Then, too, even the parts for which he had no comments went more smoothly for having been rehearsed once.

On the other hand, she didn’t feel terribly romantic on Thursday after a late choir rehearsal, going through the sermon, and then listening to his suggestions. David, who was good at picking things up, stopped making advances then, too. Or, maybe, he wanted to save up for Friday night. Then, with the Saturday dry spell guaranteed, David always proceeded to seduce her. And quite welcome seductions they were, too.

The Thursday her sermon ran much too long, she felt ambivalent. It was better that David had heard it alone instead of hearing it along with the entire congregation. On the other hand, sermons like this were one of the reasons she felt inadequate. “Well,” she defended herself, “I tightened as much as I could.”

“You tightened too much,” he suggested. He was always a surprise. “You have two ideas there; choose one of them. If you want, preach the other point the next week. You’re married to me, you didn’t swear to love, honor, and obey the Lectionary.”

She had an answer to that sally. “I didn’t swear to love, honor, and obey you.”

“Campbell betrayed me. I bribed him to put it in.”

“It’s a thought, though.” He was being utterly silly about the wedding vows, but he made sense about the sermon. About the two sermons, really.

Sunday, she preached only about the woman who touched Jesus’ robe.

After church, they had dinner at the Swensons’. “I’m glad I married you,” she said on the drive back.

“I am, too,” David replied. “If we’d just shacked up, the Swensons might respect you less as their pastor.”

The man could be utterly silly. “Sometimes, I’m glad I married you. I think today’s sermon was well-received. Much better than what I started with.”

“I think today’s sermon was very good.”

“Much better than what I started with. You didn’t say that, but you meant it.”

“I meant that it was very good,” David said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

She had things to sort out, and David had supper to cook. He took care of her on Sunday. A little of it was that he wanted her rested and in a good mood for their bed times; a little of it was that she worked hard for the service, and then had to go visit instead of collapsing; a lot of it was that he was a considerate man.

After they’d finished supper and shoved their plates aside, David read the Gospel lesson for the next week. “And what struck you for today?” he asked.

“Everybody who knew him as a kid couldn’t believe he spoke with authority. What struck you?”

“The people had such little faith that not even Jesus could perform much in the way of miracles.” And, since that was what had struck him the day before while he was preparing, that was what his questions were about. She considered his issue; she considered her own; but Jairus’s daughter still intrigued her.

“So,” she asked him, “should I preach on this or go on with Jairus’s daughter?”

“Whichever you feel your congregation needs to hear,” he said. “And there are two more lessons, as well. You’re the preacher; I’m merely a consultant.”

That was a gross misstatement. “That’s not all you are.”

“No. But that can wait ‘til we’re done in the kitchen.”

She hadn’t meant that he was a lech, but he was. “Honeymoon’s over. You didn’t use to wait ‘til we were done in the kitchen.” That comment was tempting fate.

It was also tempting David -- which had been her intent. “I didn’t?” he asked. She braced herself. He hugged her with his hands on her rump. As his tongue invaded her mouth, she felt him start to harden against her belly.

“Did I act like that?” he asked when they had to breathe.

“Something like that.”

“Extremely naughty of me. Independence UMC provides this room for the preparation of its pastor’s meals, not for canoodling.” Where did David get those words?

“I’m sure that nobody on the Trustees intends this for canoodling.”

“That’s why they provide all those bedrooms upstairs.”

Well, one of those bedrooms was comfortably heated and furnished. They hurried to finish their chores so they could head for it.

David stripped her slowly. At first, she’d feared the intimacy of marriage would desensitize him to her times of nakedness. It hadn’t happened. He still kissed each newly- revealed piece of skin. Naked, she slipped into bed and turned on the bedside lamp while he removed his clothes, a lot faster than he’d removed hers. When he was in bed beside her, he kissed her sweetly.

Then romance, which they did feel, made way for the lust which they -- she, at least -- felt more strongly just then. David kissed slowly down her torso while he stroked the rest of her body. This was delightful at first. His courtship had revealed new erogenous zones she hadn’t been aware of until then, and marriage had exercised them in ways she hadn’t believed possible.

Soon, though, she needed more. And he gave her more, sucking her nipple and stroking her thighs. A little later than she wanted it but soon enough that her desire didn’t turn to annoyance, he progressed to her mound and then to her lower lips.

Soon he was kissing her thighs on the way to her mound. David had made very clear that he enjoyed giving her a climax orally before going on to total sex. Given the chance, he’d give her one climax after another. Which would be delightful at the time but would totally wring her out. With Monday as her day off, though, she would really enjoy a double-decker. And he’d convinced her that he would enjoy it, too. “Oh, yes, David,” she said as he licked her lower lips.

He worked up slowly to the completion. She was writhing, feeling intense pleasure and nearly-as-intense agony. She held his head against her to speed his action. Then all her sensations came together.

She soared, rising and rising but never leaving his pleasure- giving mouth. Until she crashed and the mouth was suddenly too much. She pushed it away.

He moved to cuddle her, and -- as she slowly returned to Earth -- she returned to the haven of his arms.

She enjoyed the comfort, enjoyed even more the knowledge that they weren’t done for the night.

“Ready?” he finally asked.

“Oh, yes.” She was ready for more than he began, really. The kiss was delightful; so were his kisses on her neck and breasts. The kisses on her lower lips were even more delightful and delightfully arousing. She needed to go beyond that, though. “David,” she said.

She pulled him upwards on her body by his shoulders, and then guided him inside her. How she needed this. Life! He entered her, filled her, completed her. “Love you,” he said.

“Love you.”

He moved over her, moved within her arms and legs, moved within her. “Mmm, yes.” The feeling was voluptuous, his hands on her breasts were comforting while they were arousing. As delightful as it felt, something in the tension of her body -- something in the force within her that drove her hips up against his -- signaled that there would be more.

And, then, there was more. There was infinitely more as she climaxed under David and around him. “Jen,” David said, “Jennifer.” His heat throbbed within her warmth.